


Beautiful Boy (But I Don't Know Your Name)

by PadaWinBaby



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Trans Male Character, brief mention of child abuse, deadnaming, emotionally stunted Isle of the Lost kids, minor Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2018-12-06 05:10:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PadaWinBaby/pseuds/PadaWinBaby
Summary: Carlos has a secret. Well, a couple of secrets, actually. But there's a big one, and it could affect his future happiness if they people he loves can't accept him for it.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going for the same kind of slow burn with Jane that you see in the movies, but sort of a hot and fast thing with Jay. I started writing this because trans boys need more representation in media, and because I liked the idea of both Carlos' canoncial relationship and the most common one that I've seen. It still pisses me off that they gave Carlos the obligatory girlfriend, but at least he and Jane are cute together. I think Jay and Jane would make a nice little Carlos-flavored Oreo.
> 
> The title is derived from the title and final line of Beautiful Boy by Bethel Steele.

All things considered, Carlos’ secret wasn’t the biggest one kept on the Isle of the Lost. No, that honor went to Gil, son of Gaston, who quietly and creepily lusted after Uma for years. Carlos had stumbled onto the disturbing little shrine Gil kept in his closet one time, when he’d been sent by his mother to collect a debt from the boy’s father and had gone looking for the bathroom. Gil had sworn him to secrecy, on pain of death, and Carlos had gladly washed his hands of the whole thing. It was easy to keep a secret when you avoided contact with both the keeper and subject of said secret. With Mal and Uma on the outs, Uma’s gang avoided their little quartet as much as possible.

It was easy to hide his secret, too, and he owed that to his mother’s obsession with fashion and clothing. Clothes could hide a plethora of imperfections. They could help you pretend to be something else. Most of all, they could help you express yourself better than anything else in the world. Carlos was 4 years old the first time he asked his mother how to sew. He’d picked the wrong moment and been burned by the cigarette smoldering in the extender she smoked from. A year and a half later, she’d called him into her studio and sat him down at the table where she drew up her patterns. They’d worked most of the afternoon, Carlos learning the geometry of patterns, and how the shapes fit together to make a garment. He still remembered it as one of the happiest days of his life, and still kept the slightly-lopsided jacket they’d made together, folded up in a locked chest in the back of his closet. He kept a lot of things in there, things he couldn’t bring himself to throw away. Shameful things.

You see, when Carlos was born, his mother had named him Adi, her jewel, her ornament. Her precious baby _girl_. For the first seven years of his life, Adi wore her hair in black and white ringlets, flounced around in adorable hand-sewn dresses, and had tea parties with Mal and Evie and all the little girls whose parents were deposed royalty. She was the perfect daughter until she met Harry’s little group of pirates, the day the Auradon royalty finally tracked down Captain Hook and his ship full of hooligans. There was a girl there. Adi never heard her name; she fell ill and died quickly after the pirates moved in. But Adi heard the rumor. That pirate girl had been born a boy. She had changed, become the real her. That struck Adi deep. She’d watched the boys roughhouse from her window while her mother did her hair every morning and longed to be with them. More than that. She’d longed to be _one_ of them. Messy, loud, unruly in all the best ways. She wanted to change, to be the person locked in the cage of her heart, where her doting but cruel mother couldn’t touch him.

The greatest gift Cruella de Vil ever gave the daughter she gave birth to was acceptance. When seven-year-old Adi de Vil approached her mother hesitantly, praying for a good mood, a kind hand, and told her, with tears in her eyes, that she’d like to become Carlos, she’d gathered the shivering child into her arms and sat her – him! – on the fur-trimmed coverlet of the big bed their small apartment forced them to share. She wiped the tears from her child’s freckled cheeks and told her, quietly and concisely, that she would love Carlos as much as she had loved Adi, simply because he was hers. They sat together for hours, child clinging to mother and sobbing into her furs, as Adi de Vil died, and Carlos de Vil emerged. In the week that followed, Cruella held a funeral for her darling daughter with the perfect curls, making a big deal about the “death” of her daughter without getting specific about, well, the specifics. But that wasn’t terribly unusual on the Isle. There was a week of silence that followed, too, as Cruella mourned, loudly and publicly. Then, one day, Carlos enrolled in school on the Isle, the apparent twin brother of Adi, a child Cruella had kept in the studio, helping her work on her fashions. A child with no friends, but a magnetic sort of charm that quickly earned him several. He easily picked back up with Evie and Mal, slotting perfectly into the place Adi had vacated.

His secret was so, so easy to keep that he could almost pretend Adi had never existed, that Carlos always had. Easy, that is, until the day he caught a hand in the pocket of his favorite leather jacket, and turned, to find himself face-to-chest with the thief son of Jafar, the boy known only as Jay. Carlos remembered him, seen occasionally loitering in the darkest corners of the school hallway, or sitting around eating stolen fruit just out of the reach of the victimized sellers. Long story short, he’d caught Carlos’ eye, and made his heart do funny things that made him wonder if Adi was somehow still alive within him. When the corner of Jay’s mouth lifted into a smirk that was somehow sheepish beneath the blatant cockiness, Carlos couldn’t help the reflexive smile he returned with. Jay somehow found his way into their little group, falling perfectly into step with Carlos, Mal, and Evie like he’d always been there.

Proximity to Jay drew Carlos out of his shell, helping him firmly shed the last vestiges of Adi. Being with the thief amplified his natural goofy side, and brought out his inner jokester. He started surreptitiously designing things for Jay, leaving things like jackets and gloves and hats where he knew Jay would find them, looking the other way so Jay could feel like he stole them. When puberty laid him low, and his first period swamped him with dysphoria so bad he called out sick from school for the duration, Jay climbed through the window of the de Vil apartment after Cruella left for the studio and offered to take care of him. Carlos couldn’t tell him the real reason he was down sick, but having Jay around took the edge off of his dysphoria, because Jay had only ever seen him as a boy. He’d never clocked him, never given him that soft, confused look some of the girls gave him if he laughed wrong, or the boys gave him when he refused to change in front of them in the locker room.

After that, Jay climbed in through Carlos’ window a lot. He nearly got caught a few times. When Carlos was 13, their neighbor died, and Cruella expanded their apartment. Most of the space was dedicated to her closet, but Carlos got his own bedroom for the first time, and Jay started spending the night. So did Mal and Evie, but that felt less important than when Jay did, especially on the nights when it was just the two of them. 

On the day Carlos turned 15, he threw a party in a emptier part of the extended closet that surrounded his room. He invited everyone in their little gang: Mal and her girlfriend Uma, Evie, Harry, Gil, and Jay. Harry brought a couple of bottles of rum from his father’s stash, and Uma stole some glasses from her mother’s restaurant. Gil brought pillows, Evie brought blankets. Mal and Jay found themselves in charge of food and music. The danced, they drank, and at the end of the night, they all sprawled on the pillows and blankets they’d laid out, slurring their way through stories and gossip and secrets. Carlos found himself pressed against Jay’s side, head on the thief’s chest. He clawed sluggishly up until he could look the other boy in the eye. “I’ve got a secret, too,” he stage whispered, slurring his words slightly. Jay raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?” he asked, his voice doing that deep rumbly thing in his chest that made Carlos smile. The white-haired boy nodded hard, and had to pause for a moment to make his head stop spinning. “If I tell you, you gotta keep it,” Carlos continued, trying hard to give Jay a serious look. The Arabian boy smiled softly, cleared amused by his friend’s animated drunkenness, and agreed. Carlos looked around, checking to see if anyone was listening. Mal, Evie, and Uma were asleep in a tangled pile, and Gil was too busy losing to Harry at some card game or other. When he turned back to Jay, he leaned closer, just to be safe. “I used to be a girl,” he whispered, lips practically pressed to Jay’s ear. The small shiver that ran through Jay’s body said more than any word could have. He turned his face to meet Carlos, and their lips brushed together. It was an accident at first, but then Jay leaned his head up, pushing against the smaller boy’s plush and yielding lips, and Carlos pushed back, intrigued by the electric buzz that went through him. When Jay finally laid his head back, breaking the kiss, he brushed a thumb across Carlos’ high, freckled cheekbone, and said the words that made Carlos his forever, whether either of them knew it or not: “What you once were doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you are now.” Carlos was the one who did the kissing then, an awkward affair due to his wide grin, their teeth clacking together for a moment before their faces got with the program.

Kissing factored into a lot of Jay’s sleepovers after that. Eventually, kissing became dry-humping became touching. It seemed fitting that Carlos’ first experience with a penis was the day he got brave and pushed his hand down Jay’s pants while they were making out on Carlos’ bed. It almost felt…right. The short, quiet little gasps Jay let out as Carlos stroked him felt right, too. It took a lot longer for Carlos to let Jay touch him that way, though. A little over a year, in fact. 

Their first night at Auradon Prep, after they got back from their little magic museum stunt, Jay swept Carlos off his feet, literally, the moment they figured out that their dorm room lock actually worked, and deposited him on the bed Jay had claimed. He silenced Carlos’ pleased giggle with a kiss, and Carlos flung his arms around the larger boy’s neck. He let himself be pulled under by the tidal wave of Jay’s affection, and didn’t resist when the boy’s hands found the waist of his pants. Jay still paused, though, and asked him softly if he was sure he was okay with what he wanted to do. Carlos kissed his fears away, assuring him that he wanted this as much as Jay did. Ultimately, Carlos decided Jay’s fingers were magic. It was the only explanation for the way Carlos melted when he touched him, dissolving into an incoherence that made Jay smile impossibly big. After his world had flown apart and reassembled itself, Jay licked his fingers and kissed him softer than he had since their very first kiss. As enchanted with Jay’s fingers as he was, Carlos still refused to let Jay see him naked, or even get his hands under his binder.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What started so well is starting to fray, and Carlos has no idea what he did wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a tad short, but it didn't flow with the next scene the way I wanted, so I cut it off. I can assure you that the next chater will be MUCH longer, and actually feature dialogue!

Carlos was enchanted by Jane the moment he first laid eyes on her. Terrible haircut aside, she was the prettiest girl he had ever laid eyes on. She even outshone Evie, who’d been conditioned to be the “Fairest of Them All” by her mother. She made his heart beat double time and his spine straighten of its own accord. He didn’t exactly know what love was supposed to feel like, but he certainly felt different around Jane. He felt dumb and gooey, the way he’d seen the good boys on campus act with their girlfriends. He couldn’t stop himself from watching her whenever she was around, even when she started hanging out with Audrey and her personality changed.

The only real downside to noticing Jane was that Jay noticed Carlos noticing Jane, and a hot and angry little beast set up residence in Jay’s chest. Jay started distancing himself from their little entanglement. It started with avoiding the room when Carlos was there, but eventually he started forcing Carlos to sleep in his own bed. He claimed it was because Dude kicked him in the back and he just wanted to stretch out, but Carlos didn’t quite believe him. It was cold and lonely sleeping across the room from Jay when he’d spent so long cuddled into his side. When Jay got tired of avoiding Carlos, he started emphasizing that they were friends, nearly siblings, and Carlos went with it, not entirely certain what had changed, and why he wasn’t allowed to sleep with Jay anymore. They’d always been friends, hadn’t they? What had that had to do with their sleeping and kissing and touching? He tried not to think about it too hard, slipping quietly into the new role Jay had assigned him, and into the drama surrounding the relationship between Ben and Mal. He quietly watched Jay chase girls like Audrey and Lonnie, ignoring the tightness that curled in his gut.

Carlos, of course, had no idea how to talk to girls that weren’t Villain Kids. The girls of Auradon were like dolls more than they were actual human beings, and even Adi had never been very good at handling dolls. Girls ran in cliques and were so rarely alone that individual conversation was challenging. Jane, specifically, seemed to have everything on her plate, from cheerleading to organizing cotillion, and she never seemed to stop. Carlos could never catch her alone and unoccupied for longer than a few awkwardly-exchanged, friendly sentences. Mal found his floundering over Jane endlessly amusing, though she did offer to help from time to time. She was fond of reminding him that love potions weren’t the only helpful magicks lurking in her mother’s spellbook. Time and again, he refused, determined to crack the girl code in order to know Jane better, and time and again, he flubbed his words, or he lost his nerve midsentence, or he mumbled and was spoken over by the the more assertive females Jane tended to run with.

Jay watched Carlos flounder, and part of him was smug about the boy’s continued failures. There was no suppressing, however, the soft and gooey side of him that still warmed to Carlos in a familiar way. Having been raised on the notion that those sorts of emotions were weaknesses, he was loathe to identify it as love, genuine love. Every time they bubbled to the surface, he shoved them aside, channeling his frustrations into tourney, R.O.A.R., and kissing any girl who stood still long enough. He told himself that he was coping, learning to live without his dearest friend. He let himself believe that these girls were enough, that their softness could distract him from what he missed most about kissing Carlos. He found the softness of their lips didn’t match that of Carlos’s, and when they eventually fooled around, they didn’t react with the same open and innocent desperation Carlos had. Their bodies were soft in the wrong places. While he enjoyed himself carnally, there was an emotional disconnect that inevitably ended every relationship he stumbled into. There was simply no room in his heart for anyone else while Carlos still resided there.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos needs a hand, and it opens his relationship with Jay up to a new level, even if it's not the level Jay wants.

Tension grew between the boys behind closed doors, though they managed to put it aside for the sports they played and the classes they aced. Things came to a head one night, after Carlos took a dragonfire missile to the shoulder during a tourney scrimmage with a rival school. Jay was concerned, and hovered like a nervous nanny, trying to boss Carlos around and do things for him at the same time. Finally, Carlos got frustrated and shoved his hands away, pushing Jay out of his personal space harder than he intended to.

“Get off of me,” he snapped, clearly in pain and annoyed. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been distant for months, and now all of a sudden you care?” He wobbled to his bed, clutching his shoulder. He was being whiny, he knew he was. He could hear it in his own voice, but dammit, he’d had enough!

Jay sighed and sat down at the desk that held their 3D printer, rubbing his eyes. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he could put into words the way he was feeling. They’d never been given the language with which to talk about emotions that heavy.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, unsure what else to say. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately.” He did. “I’ll leave you be.” He couldn’t. “Let me know if you need a hand.” He could barely even look at Carlos, afraid he’d break down and say things he couldn’t take back.

Carlos sighed, irritation deflating as quickly as it had arisen. He carefully extricated himself from his shirt, and then the leather padding beneath, then stood there for a long, terrifying moment in his uniform shorts and half-tank binder, an ugly, worrisome bruise already blooming across the pale, freckled skin of his exposed shoulder, and beginning to dip beneath the strap and neck of his binder. This was a view Jay had seen so many times, sans bruise. He could almost remember the feel of Carlos’s skin beneath his hands, palms itching to touch it again, to soothe, and it killed him. But he’d made his choice. He wanted Carlos to be happy, and in Auradon, that meant a perfect girlfriend. Not Jay.

Carlos ran his hands through his asymmetrical black-and-white hair, wincing when the movement disturbed the tender flesh of his shoulder. He was facing a difficult decision. He knew if he asked, Jay would turn away, or even leave the room, so he could change out of his binder for the day. The problem he was facing was that he was in too much pain to take his close-as-skin binder off by himself. It was a struggle on his best days, and his range of motion was currently reduced. He closed his eyes and took a breath, releasing it slowly.

“Jay,” he said softly, not daring to look back at the boy in question. He heard the scrape of the chair; Jay turned it around to face the door. “Jay.” He spoke louder this time, and he hoped that Jay turned to look back at him again. “I need your help to get my binder off.”

His voice shook slightly, tapering off to a whisper as he finished his sentence. Silence hung heavy in the room for several racing heartbeats, and Carlos worried that Jay hadn’t heard him, or had decided not to help after being pushed away.

Jay cleared his throat and licked his lips.

“Are…are you sure?” Jay asked, voice cracking in spite of himself. This was something he’d never been allowed before, and he hated that it had taken these circumstances to make it happen. This wasn’t trust, not the way being allowed to finger him had been. This was impotence.

Carlos nodded slowly.

“Please,” he whispered. He was already clutching his chest, afraid to let Jay see him, though there was nothing yet to see.

Jay approached slowly, afraid to spook the already-trembling boy. His own fingers shook slightly as he reached out to settle his hands just below the hemline of Carlos’s binder. Carlos flinched slightly and stilled, waiting. Jay couldn’t decide whose heartbeat he could feel fluttering rapidly against his fingertips: his or Carlos’s. The freckled skin was as warm as Jay remembered. He slipped his fingers under the hemline, brushing over the marks where the stitching dug in slightly. The upward pull was slow going, and not only because Jay was taking his time. The binder fit like a second skin, and peeled away reluctantly. The skin revealed was slightly paler and soft with drying sweat. Jay longed to press kisses along Carlos’s spine, to soothe away the tremble that intensified the further he was undressed. Jay had to pause just below Carlos’s chest and wait until the smaller boy calmed enough to stop clutching his arms to his chest so tightly Jay couldn’t get the binder past them.

Getting Carlos’s arms out of the binder was an exercise in patience and careful engineering that involved pushing, pulling, and cursing. Finally, the binder was tossed aside, curling up much smaller than it looked like it should’ve been able to. Carlos’s hands went immediately back to covering his chest. He was lucky in that his breasts weren’t terribly large, like his mother’s, but even what small weight they claimed was too much. They made him feel disgusting, and he trembled hard as he pushed them as flat as they would go against his ribcage. His ribs ache from being bound up for so long – he knew he wasn’t supposed to bind during physical exertion, but the sports bras he’d been using were all in the wash, and there was no way he was free-balling during a scrimmage match with strangers – and from the weight of his dysphoria. He could barely breathe as he turned to face Jay as he truly was for the first time, and he refused to make eye contact.

Jay focused on the blossoming bruise on Carlos’s shoulder, skimming gently fingertips over the damaged flesh. “This is gonna be gnarly,” he stated, noticing the way the tension slowly bled from Carlos’s shoulders when Jay didn’t make any immediate comment on the shape of his body. “I’d say go to the nurse before it starts to go, like, green, or whatever. Make sure nothing else’s messed up.” He lifted Carlos’s hand away from where he clutched his chest, holding the wrist loosely. “How’s the feeling in your fingers? Can you move them?” He spare the briefest glance for the boy’s chest, and refocused on those slim, calloused fingers with their blunt-chewn nails and frayed cuticles. Carlos made a weak fist and grimaced.  
“It hurts to make a fist,” he answered, voice thread but gaining confidence. “Writing is gonna be fun.” He clenched and unclenched the fist, grimacing the entire time. “D’you think I could get Jane or someone to take my notes for me?”

Jay’s stomach balled up like a rock. Even in pain, Carlos was thinking of Jane. On impulse, he reached out and stroked his thumb along one of Carlos’s cheekbones. “You don’t have to worry, you know,” he said quietly. “This doesn’t change the way I see you.” He gestured vaguely at the other boy’s bare chest, which Carlos had dropped his hands from subconsciously while he was testing the feeling in his fingers. “You’re still Carlos.”

A rosy pink blush bloomed along those razor sharp cheekbones, and Carlos turned away, looking through his clean clothes for a loose tank top to wear for the night that required little arm raising to don. While his back was turned, Jay ran a hand through his long, dark hair and sighed. As much as he appreciated the new dimension their friendship had taken on, he knew he was only second fiddle to Jane. It made his stomach hurt to think about. After he sent Carlos off to see about a nurse, Jay collapsed facedown on his bed and let out the most world-weary sigh he was capable of, releasing as much of the negative roiling in his gut as he could. This sucked, worse than the switch across his knuckles he’d so often gotten as a child for failing to bring back anything his father could turn a profit on. Worse, even, than the time he’d broken his arm in a fist fight with Harry Hook when he was 12, and that had never healed properly. He wasn’t sure how long he could stand watching Carlos mooning over Jane before he did something ugly and mean. It was in his blood, after all. He was only a product of the Isle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you there'd be actual dialogue! You can look forward to this trend of talking the important shit out and glossing over the rest. It's just my style these days.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Injuries, character introductions, and the looming threat of Cotillion.

Carlos had to sit out from all physical activity for three weeks while his shoulder healed. Thankfully, Jay sending him off to see the nurse meant that the tiny tear in the ligament at the front of his shoulder hadn’t been allowed to get worse. She’d quickly put him in a sling, with strict orders not to bind until he had full range of motion back. This had him moping around in a oversized team hoodie he’d “borrowed” from one of his larger teammates during laundry day, and slouching his way through the hallways like a raincloud. Although everyone who knew him noticed, the Auradon kids mostly let him be, giving him something of a wide berth, for fear that his sour mood was contagious. His fellow Villain Kids, including the new ones who’d slipped out of the dome when Zevon had done his thing, stuck to him pretty closely, showing legitimate, if unfamiliar, concern for the normally-chipper boy’s wellbeing. Freddie made herself something of a nuisance, in fact, and Carlos had to have Jay step in a time or two when she got too pushy with the potions she kept offering him. Still determined to impress Jane, Carlos had to remind Freddie constantly that voodoo counted as magic, meaning it was technically illegal, and he no longer wanted anything to do with evils like that.

An interesting side effect of getting close with the new VKs came in the form of Harriet Hook, oldest daughter of the good Captain. She came to confide in Carlos that she, too, felt that she wasn’t meant to be a girl. Like Carlos, she had always felt a connection to the more masculine things. She wanted to be more like her twin brother, Harry, but maybe…not a boy? Carlos took her to a dark corner of the Royal Library, a part he’d discovered while trying to duck Chad Charming’s endless attempts to get Carlos to do his homework for him. It was little more than a smallish study room, separated from the rest of the library by a heavy drapery that served as a door, and lit by a single slit of a window. There was a large, dusty bookshelf on the wall opposite the entrance, and a tiny table with a single chair in the middle. The bookshelf held books, naturally: records of the lives and magicks of various historical figures, diaries, studies, etc. The one thing that these books had in common that each one’s subject was gender nonconforming in some way. There were a handful of transgender witches or wizards, whose stories Carlos cherished, but there were hundreds more who were nonbinary, intersex, and various other shades of the spectrum. He’d never asked why these tomes were apparently hidden, though clearly not banned. He’d only ever been ecstatic that they existed. He took Harriet to this secret hideaway with the hope that the books would help her discover who she was. Six days later, Harriet cut her waist-length hair, changed her name to Harper, and started to demand that people us the singular they in reference to them.

By then, Carlos was back on his feet, and the protective bubble of his friends from the Isle started to relax some. Jay still stuck close, but that wasn’t terribly unusual anymore. He was really trying to be Carlos’s friend again, even though it hurt. There was still some distance there, Jay still forcing them to sleep apart, largely for the sake of his own sanity, but he was acting like the old Jay again, the one Carlos had known before their tryst on the Isle had started.

Things with Jane were as awkward and stilted as ever, particularly after their return from the Isle with their parents’ totems in tow. As much as the woman terrified him, Carlos had almost wanted to see his mother in the cavernous tunnels. He’d been almost disappointed to find her back amongst her furs when they checked on her via the Mirror. As terrible as she was, she was still his mother. He couldn’t help but hope that she would have some insight on how to approach Jane, no matter how dark and withered her heart. It was a vain hope, he knew, and so he didn’t dwell on it overmuch, but the sadness he carried with him after the fact was almost palpable. Jay didn’t know how to help him, but Jane appeared to.

The gentle-hearted daughter of the Fairy Godmother was fond of baking, and even fonder of feeding the things she made to Carlos, especially when he was visibly sad or tired. Her cherry-chocolate fudge was his favorite, and so she brought it to him frequently, often sitting on the bench with him between Tourney scrimmage and R.O.A.R. practice, he in his practice gear and she in her cheerleading uniform, and watched with delight as he ate what she’d brought. They didn’t talk much during these times, Carlos getting hopelessly tongue-tied if he strayed from safe topics like classes and homework. He told her, once, that he liked to tinker, and the next week she brought him a small, broken little toy robot, about the size of a bouncy ball, to poke around on. Forgetting himself, he hugged her tightly, and jumped away before she could remark that his chest wasn’t as flat as it looked. By the end of the night, he had the little toy working, with a little added programming that allowed he and Jane (and anyone else he chose, but mostly Jane) to pass notes after lights out.

He was working on an electronic lock to keep Chad Charming out of his and Jay’s room when he first heard news of the Cotillion. Naturally, the news came form Chad himself, while the blonde nitwit was explaining why he needed to use Carlos’s specially modded 3D printer for the fourteenth time that week. “I’m a prince!” he’d insisted. “What sort of prince goes to a formal dance without his crown?! Mummy and Daddy are having mine upgraded, so why not let me print a stand-in? Where’s the harm?” Carlos cited the fact that he’d had to replace the printing medium three times this week, and Chad left, somewhat crestfallen, after being forced to leave behind his fifth printed copy of their room key. Carlos huffed out an annoyed breath. He wouldn’t mind Chad using his things if it weren’t for the fact that his privacy was of utmost priority if he intended to keep his secret, well, secret. Chad had the biggest mouth for gossip, and an open invitation to Jordan’s news shows.

After the initial Chad-centric irritation passed, the boy prince’s words settled in. “Formal dance?” Carlos mused curiously. He glanced at Jay, who shrugged, and went to retrieve his laptop. He called up the events page on his school portal. There, in big, fancy, golden letters, was the announcement for Cotillion, pinned to the top. He checked the date with dinner plate eyes, panic rising in his chest. They still had some six and a half weeks to prepare, but the fact that “preparing” meant finding a date scared him in the same way that his mother’s raised voice had. He hurriedly pounded out a text to the girls, asking if they’d heard about the event. Evie, naturally, had, but was neck-deep in taffeta from the moment the event was announced, so she hadn’t had time to tell the boys. Mal, on the other hand, went into full panic mode, putting Carlos’s anxiety to shame. She’d been primped and primed for event after event since the Coronation, and she’d been hoping for some kind of respite before the holidays. Carlos stared blank-eyed at Jay while Mal and Evie flooded their group chat with fears and assurances, and the Arabian boy raised his eyebrows at him, unsure what was even happening. “Cotillion,” Carlos whispered. Jay’s brows furrowed for a moment, and then made a play for his hairline as he connected the dots. “And the event page says that it’s required attendance for all Remedial Goodness students.” This had Jay on his feet, pacing. He wasn’t worried about what he’d wear; he had no doubt that Evie had things for her friends in the works long before the princesses and whatnot approached her for their own purposes. He was worried about who he would take. Was going alone an option? Carlos tracked him as he paced, his brain turning over and over on how he had to buckle down and ask Jane out or he might lose her to whoever took her to Cotillion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise you I'm not just including Harper to up my diversity. They're actually going to play a part in future chapters.


End file.
